
Gcr^txnv, 18 12-. 



XSLCULt/. 




Qass e :)W^ 

Book Xr a 3 



, J 



^ iv^ §^ /h-^^^ 



DISCOURSE, 



DELIVERED 



AT TRINITY CHURCH, BOSTON, JULY 23, 1812, 



ON THE 



DAY OF PTJBLICK FAST 



IN MASSACHUSETTS, 



UPON THE 



DECLARATION OF WAR AGAINST 
GREATBRITAIN. 



BY JOHN Si J, GARDINER, A. M. 

RECTOR. 



JBOSTOJV: 

Published by Munrqe & Franci'?, No, 4n CornfiiU. 
1812. 




PSALM cxs. 7. 



I AM FOR PEACE. 



L DOUBT not, my brethren, were the great majority of 
our fellow-citizens to speak their sentiments, their lan- 
guage individually would be that of the text : ' I am for 
peace.' 

The greatest of national calamities has at length be- 
fallen us, and we are engaged, as the admirable procla- 
mation of his Excellency expresses it, ' in war against 
the nation from which we are descended, and which for 
many generations has been the bulwark of the religion 
we profess.' It is a war unexampled in the annals of 
the world, wantonly proclaimed on the most frivolous 
and groundless pretences, against a nation, from whose 
friendship we might derive the most signal advantages, 
and from whose hostility we have reason to dread the 
most tremendous losses. It is a war, entered into at a 
moment the most unpropitious, when we have neither 
army, nor navy, nor money, nor inclination, to flatter us 
with the remotest probability of success, and which 
must terminate in the disgijgce of our arms, and possibly 
in the loss of our liberti 



serac 



1 shall consider in the following discourse, I. the 
causes which led to this war ; II. conclude with such 
observations as the subject may suggest. 

I. The first cause of our present alarming situation 
was the French revolution. It was natural for a nation 
like ours, which had thrown off the yoke of the parent 
country, and, at the expense of much blood and treasure, 
established a republic, to sympathize with the French 
people in their attempts to form a free government. 
The gratitude felt towards France for the aid she afford- 
ed us during our own revolutionary struggle, though 
that aid, in which the nation had no voice, was granted 
iolely by the king, at that time styled * our great and 
good ally,' increased our sympathy, and gradually ex- 
cited our enthusiasm. So far our gratitude to France 
was not reprehensible. Our vanity also was gratified at 
beholding a great nation following, as we supposed, our 
steps, and cherishing the holy flame of freedom, caught 
at the American altar, which was to enlighten all Europe; 
and our enthusiastic philanthropy exulted at the pros- 
pect of a political milennium, when the rod of oppres- 
sion would fall from the grasp of tyrants, and the rights 
of man be universally respected. Little did we think 
that this flame, which was to purify the old govern- 
ments of Europe, would prove a conflagration, that 
\*ould set fire to the world. But when France, from a 
nation of * gentlemen and cavaliers' degenerated to a na- 
tion of cut-throats, uhen she abolished by a formal decree 
all revealed religion, massacred her clergy, murdered 
her nobles, drowned innocent women and children, per- 
petrated the worst crimes in the very worst manner, and 
i'-d to the guillotine Lewis fflW^teenth, ' our great and 



good ally,' the only Frenchman to whom we ever owed 
an obligation,... from that time all rational and thinking 
men abandoned her cause, and have ever since lamented 
the fatal success of her arms. 

We should naturally have concluded that thcAmerican 
people would have felt justly indignant at the perpetration 
of such unheardof atrocities ; that a grateful people would 
have resented the murder of their benefactor ; that a re- 
ligious people would have been shocked at the abolition 
of Christianity ; that a moral and humane people would 
have turned with disgust from scenes of injustice, con- 
fiscation, and blood. That the sounder part of the 
community felt these sentiments, there can be no doubt. 
But an unaccountable infatuation seems to have seized 
upon a considerable number of our fellow citizens, to 
have turned their heads and steeled their hearts. At 
that period when the incendiary Genet landed in the 
southern states, and blew his trumpet of anarchy, had the 
present administration been at the helm, we should ere 
this have been, what we shall yet be, if we do not exert 
ourselves with the spirit of freemen, the vassals of 
France. But Wasiiington was then alive ; and the father 
of his country, who had vindicated her rights and 
achieved her independence, saved her from the crimes 
and horrors of the French revolution. A war with Eng- 
land at that time would have been more just than at 
any period since, as she disregarded our rights, and 
committed depredations on our commerce. But Wash- 
ington, sensible that a rupture with England must have 
produced an alliance with France, wisely preferred ne- 
gotiation to war. In spite of factious demagogues, and 
at the hazard of his own popularity, he signed Mr, Jay's 



treaty, by which he not only saved his country from 
ruin, but procured for her a degree of prosperity, unex- 
ampled in the annals of any nation. We were then, in 
the language of Mr. Jefferson, * in the full tide of suc- 
cessful experiment ;' but from the time that gentleman 
came into power, the tide has been gradually ebbing, 
till it is now completely at low water mark. Such was 
the baneful tendency of his measures, and such, contin- 
ued and improved by his successor in office, have been 
their baneful effects. 

It requires, my brethren, no depth of political knowl- 
edge, no profound reasoning, to appreciate duly the me- 
rits of the two administrations, the administration of 
Washington, and the administration of Jefferson, in the 
latter of which I include Mr. Madison's, who is his pupil, 
if not his puppet, acting and speaking as he is prompted 
from behind the scenes. It is a matter of fact and of 
history, and you are capable of judging for yourselves. 
Look then on this picture, and on this. In the admin- 
istration of AVashington the affairs of the country were 
conducted with the utmost wisdom. Every office was 
filled with men of distinguished talents and unimpeach- 
able integrity. The greatest impartiality was displayed 
towards the belligerents. Our commercial fleets whi- 
tened every ocean with their sails, carrying out the pro- 
duce of our own country, and bringing home the vari- 
ous products of every clime, adapted either for use or 
ornament. Our merchants grew rich, our mechanics 
were fully employed, and our farmers met with a rapid 
sale and a high price for the fruits of their labour. Our 
seaports were improved with magnificent houses, and 
works of public utility, and an immense capital was 



acquired by the successful enterprize of a protected 
commerce. Our land smiled with abundance, and the 
American nation advanced with rapid strides towards 
solid power, and national aggrandizement. We were 
at peace with all nations, and generally respected by all. 
Our credit was good, and our treasury full. Look now 
on the other picture, which represents the present situa- 
tion of our country. Important offices filled by men 
without character and without capacity ; the grossest par- 
tiahty and even servility shown to one of the belligerents, 
and the other treated with injustice, calumny and vio- 
lence ; our commerce annihilated by embargoes and 
non- intercourses ; our merchants ruined, our mechanics 
without employment ; our farmers discouraged from 
raising more than what is necessary for home consump- 
tion ; our seaports exposed to the attacks of the greatest 
naval power in the world, wantonly provoked ; our 
floating property, to an immense amount, a prey to his 
numerous cruisers ; an unjust and unnecessary war, in- 
volving French alliance, and, in that alliance, the loss of 
every thing dear to man, the loss of religion, of morality, 
of independence ; an empty treasury, and impending 
taxes. Let any man of fair mind contrast these two 
pictures, and whatever may be his political sentiments, 
he will be compelled to acknowledge that a country 
could not have degenerated so rapidly from the highest 
state of prosperity to the lowest depUi of distress, but 
from gross misconduct in its rulers. 

After the anarchy of France, for liberty she never 
possessed, terminated in a military despotism, she no 
longer disguised her views of universal dominion, but 
trampled with equal indifference on the majesty of mon- 
archies and the freedom of republics. 



3 

Here we thAiglit, that our republican fellow citizens 
would surely open their eyes, and forever abandon a na- 
tion which liad become the instrument of oppression un- 
der a merciless tyrant, who had proved himself destitute 
of every moral principle, and particularly hostile to re- 
publican institutions. What ! a free people admire a 
tyrant ! republicans become friends to a military despot- 
tism ! Tell it not in Gath ; publish it not in the streets 
of Ascalon. 

There nmst surely be something fascinating to our 
rulers in the character and conduct of Napoleon, since 
their admiration of him, and subservience to his views, 
seem to increase with his atrocities. He insults our 
ambassadors,.. .prohibits our commerce,... confiscates our 
property, ...burns our merchantmen,. ..imprisons our sea- 
men,...declaies war for us,. ..and tells our government 
that they are without honour, without just political 
views. Well, does not the republican spirit rise indig- 
nant at these injuries and insults ? Will not the south- 
ern patriots, the slave-holding declaimers in favour of 
the rights of man, demand instant vengeance ? Will 
not Mr. Madison, sensibly alive to his own honour, and 
to that of his country, demand reparation for the injuries, 
and satisfaction for the insults ? Alas ! philosophy is 
made of milder stuff, and southern patriotism consists, 
not in vindicating the rights of America, but in making 
war upon commerce, and in uttering philippics against 
ilic country of our ancestors. The southern patriots, as 
Mr. l^andolph observes, expend all their sympathies on 
the Little Turtle and the savage tribes, whom they are 
anxious to furnish with blankets, to enable them to 
make a more successful attack upon us, and with scalp- 



ing knives and tomahawks to murder our women and 
children. With regard to those, who speak the san>e 
language, and are governed nearly by the same laws as 
ourselves, their rancour is implacable, unrelenting as the 
grave. But with regard to France they are true span- 
iels, and fawn upon the hand that scourges them. At 
the nod of their imperial master they lay embai'goes, 
they pass nonintercourses, they declare war. 

A second cause that led to the present war is the an- 
tipathy to England, which has prevailed more or less in 
the sreat bodv of our fellow citizens throusrhout the 
Union, since our revolution. In those, who lost 
friends or property during the contest, the prejudice 
was natural and pardonable. But so similar are the in- 
terests of the two countries, so mutually advantageous 
their commercial intercourse, that this antipathy would 
long since have expired, had it not been kept alive by 
the spirit of party, and cherished by artificial means. 
The French revolution gave it additional vigour, and 
has rendered it so virulent and implacable among the 
semi- barbarians of the southern states, that it can never 
be cured but by the experience of French domination. 
When their property shall be seized by revolutionary- 
Frenchmen, and their slaves excited to insurrection, they 
may discover, that Great Britain, of whose real charac- 
ter they are at present rather more ignorant than the 
Hottentots, is not the most tyrannical of nations, and 
that a British navy may prove some protection to the 
remaining liberties of man. In the commercial states, 
where the people are well-educated and enlightened, 
this antipathy is less violent, but still in a considerable 
degree exists. Even among those, whose fiews are 



10 

sufficiently enlarged to enable them to see that Great 
Britain is fighting for the freedom of the world, there is 
no cordiality towards her, though they are fully sensible 
that the independence of their own country depends on 
her success. Our former extensive commerce often 
brought us in collision with some of her numerous 
cruisers. Sometimes a seaman would be impressed, 
sometimes a ship would be carried into port. Whether 
the impressed man was a Briton or an American, wheth- 
er the cargo was lawful or contraband, the merchant 
would feel resentment in proportion as he suffered either 
from detention or condemnation. The outcries of the 
republicans against the pirates of the ocean, as they 
styled them, were often re-echoed by the federalists, 
who, though they detested France, still cultivated 
strong prejudices against England. The public prints, 
some of which, in the pay of the administration, are edit- 
ed by fugitive felons escaped from British justice, have 
for years teemed with the grossest abuse of that nation, 
and, under the cloak of American patriotism, have thus 
avenged the stripes or imprisonment received and merit- 
ed by their authors. So far from there beingBritish par- 
tizans in this country, it is difficult to find an individ- 
ual candid enough to do that nation common justice, 
I am sensible that this language is not popular, but is it 
not true ? and when was truth ever popular? Are not 
Mr.Pickering and Mr. Randolph the most unpopular men 
in the country ? And why ? because with a noble inde- 
pendence, regardless of popular delusion, they have told 
the people the truth ; for many of our fellow citizens, 
like the Israelites of old, seem to exclaim, ' Speak unto 
us smooth things ; prophecy deceits.' 



11 

Mr. Burke somewhere observes, that if you allow a 
man to tell you the same story every day for a year to- 
gether, however absurd and improbable it may be, you 
will at length believe him. Hence the senseless clam- 
our against the orders in council, orders perfectly justifi- 
able as retaliating on France her own injustice, and which 
never would have been executed, had we resisted with 
becoming spirit the French decrees. France prohibits all 
trade with England, and confiscates every neutral that is 
spoken with by a British cruiser. What is England to 
do ? Is she patiently to submit to this ? Is she, the 
undisputed mistress of the ocean, quietly to behold her 
enemy's ports crowded with commerce, and her own de- 
serted ? No. She declares that if neutrals do not 
compel France to rescind her decrees, that in justice to 
herself she shall be obliged to retaliate. She waits a 
whole year, and finding no effectual steps taken by neu- 
trals to bring France to reason, she does retaliate. And 
what right have we to complain, especially since from 
the conduct of France, and her increased duties on neu- 
tral commerce, were the British orders rescinded, a trade 
with her would be neither safe nor profitable. And yet 
what an outcry have these orders excited in all parties 
throughout the Union, as if their repeal would bring 
back the golden days of the immortal Washington ! 
■'■ Are the orders in council repealed ? No.... but they 
will be, for there is a change of ministry.' W^hat conse- 
quence is it to you, whether they be repealed or not, if 
you are sold to Napoleon, as you have strong reason to 
believe, by the slaves who have abused your confidence? 
Do you suppose that the repeal of the orders would 
have ensured an accommodation with England ? Be 



12 

assured it wmild not. Nothing short of the surrender 
of every maritime right on the part of Great Britain, and 
her entire prostration, would satisfy Napoleon and his 
American proconsul. We have every reason to form 
this conclusion from the conduct of the administration. 
From Mr. Jeiferson's embargo to Mr. Madison's war 
the French continental system has been in operation in 
this country, as far as the people would bear it. Every 
provocation has been offered to Great Britain on our 
, part, and our resentment has risen in proportion as she 
has shov/n a conciliating spirit, whilst our servility to- 
wards France has increased with her insolence, and has 
at length terminated in a war ruinous to ourselves, of 
which she only will reap the advantage. Suppose that 
Great Britain had enticed av/ay our seamen, had refus- 
ed to restore them on application, had laid embargoes, 
had passed a nonintercourse with this country, had re- 
fused to accept an apology for an act unauthorized by 
our government, had dismissed our embassador of 
peace, quarrelled with another embassador cloathed with 
plenipotentiary powers, for no reason that any man of 
sense could ever understand, in a compact with a third 
embassador had inserted a studied insult on our chief 
magistrate, in her parliament bad overwhelmed this 
country with the grossest calumny and abuse from the 
mouths of her leading orators, should we have suffered 
it, should we have endured it for a moment ? No.... 
from Georgia to Maine every voice would have cried 
out for immediate war, and all hearts would have been 
united in the contest. Yet all this Great Britain has en- 
dured from u». We have enticed away her seamen, 
wc have refused to restore them on application..,. we 



13 

have laid embargoes, and passed a nonintercoursej...we 
have refused to accept an apology for an act unautho- 
rized by her government, though it has been accepted 
since,... twice we have dismissed her embassadors of 
peace,. ..we have insulted her chief magistrate,. ..our ora- 
tors in Congress have overwhelmed her with calumny 
and abuse ; and finding her still patient beyond tlieir 
expectations, they have declared war. All these facts 
tend to prove incontrovertibly that a strange and unac- 
countable antipathy towards England has been one 
leading cause of our present misfortune. 

A third cause that has produced this war is the choice 
of improper representatives. 

The time was, when there existed in no part of the 
world a national assembly more august than the Con- 
gress of the United States. Washington and Adams, 
Hamilton and Pickering, filled the most important of- 
fices of state, whilst the two houses were composed of 
heroes, patriots and sages from all parts of the Union ; 
men of distinguished abilities and incorruptible integ- 
rity. Why Congress has continued to degenerate from 
that illustrious period, is a question best answered by 
those who have chosen its members. Do you wish to 
know the character of your present national rulers ? 
Hear it from Mr. Walsh, your best political writer. 
' The agents of this abominable collusion with the fell 
tyrant of France,' says he, speaking of the embargo, ' are 
not,as every administration ought to be, the nation speak- 
ing and acting in the discourse and conduct of particular 
men, but a body of impudent empirics, who have 
wormed themselves into place, and usurped the public 
confidence by means of pretences and juggles, of which 



14 

tlie gross imposture, and the ruinous tendency, are every 
day becoming more and more visible to all descriptions 
of men.'* * If,' says this eloquent writer, in another pas- 
sage, 'it has really happened, that the embargo was 
recommended and adopted pursuant to the dictates of 
the French minister, and secondarily, with a view to 
deprive the British and Spaniards of supplies for their 
tirmies in the Peninsula, there are no terms of reproba- 
tion which may not be justly applied to so foul an act 
of malevolence and servility. On this supposition, a 
greater degree of baseness has been displayed, a more 
criminal breach of trust has been committed, a grosser 
outrage practised on the national character, the spirit of 
the constitution, and the cause of justice and humanity, 
than history records in the conduct, we would almost 
say, of the rulers of any nation whatever. The people of 
the United States have been more cruelly betrayed and 
more miserably degraded, than were the people of Eng- 
land, when their monarchs of the house of Stuart sold 
themselves and their country to France, or even than 
were the Spaniards, when surrendered by their wretched 
sovereign, into the hand of Bonaparte, at Bayonne.'f 

If such be the feelings of this excellent writer, excited 
by the embargo, what will he say to the war that has 
succeeded it ? 

When our constitution was framed, and universal 
suffrage admitted, it was presumed, that the people, 
fiom their own interest, would elect men of sense and 
integrity to conduct the national affairs. It could hardly 
be foreseen that from a jealousy of wealth and of talents, 
and from party motives, they would entrust their dear- 

♦ Walsh's American Review, No. VI. p. 328. f P. 327. 



15 

est interests fo persons deficient in character and capaci- 
ty. And what has been the consequence ? A Bidwell 
and a Gannet have turned out notorious knaves, and 
yet the character of those virtuous repubUcans, previ- 
ously to their detection stood much higher than some 
patriotic members of congress who have voted for the 
present war. But if the people will choose persons to 
govern them, poor enough for temptation, and unprin- 
cipled enough not to withstand it, what can they expect 
but treachery, knavery, and meanness ? 

They have received a severe but salutary lesson, and 
if they do not improve by it, they will seal their own ruim 
If they do not elect men of sense and integrity to govern 
them, they will experience again and again, what they 
have already experienced, a loaded cannon pointed at the 
commercial states, and a madman with a lighted match 
at the touch- hole, to let it off. 

II. I proceed, secondly, to make a few observations 
that arise from the subject. 

1. Let no considerations whatever, my brethren, deter 
you at all times, and in all places, from execrating the 
present war. It is a war unjust, foolish, and ruinous. 
It is unjust, because Great Britain has offered us every 
concession short of what she conceives would prove her 
ruin. It is foolish, because it must be waged by gene- 
rals without soldiers, by naval officers without ships, by 
an administration without credit, with a treasury with- 
out money, without a definite object, with a large ma- 
jority of the people disaffected and indignant. It is ru- 
inous, because it exposes our defenceless merchantmen 
to capture, our merchants and mechanics to poverty, 
our poorer citizens to beggary, our seaports to destruc- 



16 

tion, the whole mass of our population to unnecessary 
privations and distress. It is ruinous because it involves 
a French alliance, an alliance with the enemy of the hu- 
man species,* a monster redeemed by no virtue. 

But we shall be marked, we shall be pointed out. Who 
•will mark, who will point you out ? Are you not men ? 
Arc you not freemen ? Are you not shielded by the 
majesty of the laws, which, in all free governments, al- 
low liberty of speech, without which freedom caimot ex- 
ist ? If the war party, which is composed chiefly of 
placemen, pensioners,and expectants, neither formidable 
for their numbers nor respectable for their talents, should 
once succeed in silencing your tongues, they will soon 
crv, off with the heads of the Boston rebels. Avi^ay 
then with such poltron stuif. Speak your minds bold- 
ly. ...rally round your chief magistrate and legislature, 
and zealously promote every measure, which they in 
their Avisdom shall adopt for the acquisition of peace. 
^ Think it,' says the Roman satirist, ' the height of 
wickedness to prefer life to honour, and for the sake of 
life to lose the causes of living. 'f 

2. As an alliance is probably already made between 
our administration and the French usurper, resist its 
baneful effects by all constitutional means. Suffer no 
French soldier to pollute your territory,. ...admit no 
French ship of war into your ports. You cannot forget, 
my brethren, when the names of our most respectable 
fellow citizens were exposed on the mast of a French 
frigate in this very harbour, with the evident design of 
exciting the revolutionary ruffians to murder them ; 

* Rlonstrum nulla virtute redemptum. Juvenal. 

•)• SummuTTi crcde nefas animam prxferre pudori, 

Et propter vitam viycndi pcrdere causas. yuv. sat. 8, I. 83. 



IT- 

and had it not been for the spirited exertions of some 
gallant individuals, our streets might have been deluged 
with the best blood of our metropolis. 

3. As Mr. Madison has declared war, let Mr. Madi- 
son carry it on. We shall suffer enough in our proper- 
ty, vi^ithout risquing our lives in an impious contest, 
in which our administration has thought proper to league 
with the tyrant of the world against its remaining liber- 
ties. 

' War is a game, which, were their subjects wise, 
kings should not play at' ; no.... nor presidents either ; 
especially where that war is ruinous to the property of 
the people, and highly dangerous to their independence. 
We have, surely, no more reason to confide in a presi- 
dent, the creature of our own making, than an English- 
man in his legitimate and hereditary sovereign. Yet 
hear the sentiments of an English poet on this subject, 
the author of the Task, who, in the retirement of solitude 
led the life and died the death of a saint. If instead of 
king you understand president, and apply the generous 
sentiments of the passage to the peace-party, and the 
servile sentiments to the war-party of this country, you 
will find the quotation by no means inapplicable to our 

present situation. 

We love 

The king who loves the law, respects his bounds, 

And reigus content within them : him we serve 

Freely and with delight, who leaves us free : 

But, recollecting still that he is man, 

We trust him not too far. King though he bpv. 

And king in England too, he may be weak. 

And vain enough to be ambitious still ; , v 

May exercise amiss his proper pow'rs, 



18. 

Or covet more than freemen choose to grant ; 

Beyond that mark is treason. He is ours 

T' administer, to guard, t* adorn, the state, 

But not to warp or change it. We are his, 

To serve him nobly in a cause that's justy 

True to the death, but not to be his slaves, 

Mark now the diff'rence, ye that boast your love 

Of kings, between your loyalty and ours. 

We love the man ; the paltry pageant you. 
We the chief patron of the commonwealth ; 

You the regardless author of its woes. 
We, for the sake of liberty, a king ; 

YoUf chains and bondage^ for a tyrant's sake i 
Our love is principle, and has its root 

In reason, is judicious, manly, free ; 
Yours, a blind instinct, crouches to the rod, 
./ind licks the foot that treads it in the dust. 

Whose freedom is by suff'rance, and at will 
Of a superior, he is never free. 
Who lives, and is not weary of a life 
Expos'd to manacles, deserves them well. 
The otate that strives for liberty, though foil'd. 
And fofc'd t' abandon what she bravely sought. 
Deserves at least applause for her attempt, 
And pity for her loss. But that's a cause 
Not often unsuccessful : pow'r usurp'd 
Is weakness when oppos'd ; conscious of wrong, 
'Tis pusillanimous and prone to flight. 
But slaves, that once conceive the glowing thought 
Of freedom, in that hope itself possess 
AH that the contest calls for ; spirit, strength, 
The scorn of danger, and united hearts ; 
The surest presage of the good they^eek.* 

4. I would observe that as the southern states were 
unanimous in favour of this war, and of the commercial 
states there were only fifteen votes fo7\ and more than 

* Cowper's Task, book v 



19 

ibrty against it, the conclusion is inevitable, that there is 
an essential difference of interests between the southern 
and eastern states of the union. The alternative then is, 
that if you do not wish to become the slaves, of those 
who own slaves, and who are themselves the slaves of 
French slaves, you must either, in the language of the 
day, cut the connexion^ or so far alter the national con- 
stitution, as to ensure yourselves a due share in the 
government. The union has long since been virtually 
dissolved, and it is full time that this portion of the dis- 
united states should take care of itself. But this, as Mr. 
Burke expresses it, is * high matter,' and must be left 
to the united wisdom of a northern and eastern conven- 
tion. The voice of the people, who are our sovereigns, 
will then be heard, and must be respected. To continue 
to suffer, as we have suffered for eight years past, from 
the incapacity of a weak if not corrupt administration, 
is more that can be expected from human patience, or 
christian resignation. The time has arrived when com- 
mon prudence is pusillanimity, and moderation has 
ceased to be a virtue. 

5 and lastly. Let us implore the protection and favour 
of Almighty God, humbly acknowledging, and repent- 
ing of our manifold sins ; entreating him to put a speedy 
end to this disastrous war ; to preserve to us our liber- 
ties and independence, and to inspire every man among 
us to say, with heart and voice, 

' I AM FOR PEACE/ 



'//^v 



^s 



